Top Theresa May aide gets set for some 'secret corporate lobbying'

Alex Dawson has made it clear what he thinks of David Cameron's lobbying transparency drive...

Back in 2010, an ebullient David Cameron claimed that secret corporate lobbying was undermining public confidence in the political system – and he was going to put a stop to it.

“We all know how it works. The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisers for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way,” he said.

"I believe that secret corporate lobbying, like the expenses scandal, goes to the heart of why people are so fed up with politics.”

Nine years later, it’s clear that certain top Tory operators are not quite singing from the same hymn sheet as their old leader. In particular, Theresa May’s director of research and messaging Alex Dawson.

The Number 10 man is leaving the sinking ship next month and will join Global Counsel, the highly the secretive political consultancy led by New Labour architect Peter Mandelson.

Taking the exact opposite approach to what Cameron once called for, the firm does not publish a client list and in 2012 it was reported that Mandelson had sidestepped a requirement for peers to disclose certain business clients after exploiting a loophole in the system. As a result, little is known about its clients but the Daily Mail has helpfully reported that Global Counsel has "links to an extraordinary array of wealthy oligarchs and Putin cronies".

As Public Affairs News reports, Dawson becomes the second well-known Tory operator to join the agency in the last nine months – following in the footsteps of former Tory MP Nicola Blackwood.

And we thought that Brexit was the only issue on which lots of of Tories disagreed with Dave…